


Heaven Waits For You

by songbvrd



Series: Finale Fix-It Fics! [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix It Fic, M/M, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, The finale was shit but i'm fitting this into it, basically just dean finally dealing with his feelings, cas and dean reunite in heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:01:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbvrd/pseuds/songbvrd
Summary: Dean goes to Heaven and when he finds out Jack got Cas out of the empty, he goes on a search to find him and make things right.Or... I hated the finale but wanted to make a canon compliant explanation of Dean and Castiel getting the ending they deserved.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Finale Fix-It Fics! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025170
Comments: 20
Kudos: 185





	Heaven Waits For You

**Author's Note:**

> So this is basically Dean between seeing Bobby and seeing Sam. I didn't like the idea of him just driving around for 40 odd years (so weird), so I'm writing my own interpretation of the time in between. I hope you guys enjoy it, it's a bit messy but it was written at 2am! I've already written two fix it fics, and I'm not going to lie, I truly think I'm going to write a bunch more, so if you have any ideas for what you wanted from the finale that you'd like me to write, feel free to reach out!
> 
> Please feel free to leave any/all feedback!

Dean knew the second he went flying backwards. He knew. He knew it was going to go right through him and he knew, as immediately as he felt the sharp pain, that he wasn’t getting back off that piece of rebar again.

The words he spoke to Sam were, if he was being honest, less about himself and more about Sam.

Dean couldn’t lie to himself, he couldn’t pretend he was content with dying like this, so soon after being free of Chuck. He couldn’t pretend he was okay with never getting to be free, he couldn’t pretend to himself that he would ever be okay with any of this.

But for Sammy? For Sammy he could. Sam had always been his priority. It had always been about saving Sam. Ever since he was four years old, he had been told what his purpose was. What he was supposed to do. Who he was supposed to be. Dean was a soldier. Dean was a protector. Dean was a hunter. And if anyone was going to walk away, it was always meant to be Sam.

Dean could muster up the courage to tell Sam to carry on. To tell Sam to continue fighting and living because hell, if he didn’t get to be free, his little brother sure as hell should.

He told Sam it was okay, told him that he was okay with going out this way. Honestly, Dean had spent most of his life believing he would die like this. That he would die from a bite or a bullet or a demon intervention, killed by the very thing he had been indoctrinated into since birth. And sure, that had always seemed like the right thing for him.

That was a hunter’s life. It only ended one way. Bloody. 

Dean had always believed that.

Right up until he hadn’t. By the time it was him against God, Dean had actually started to believe that maybe he had a chance. By the time he had killed Death twice, stopped so many apocalypses, by the time it all started to feel impossibly big and insurmountable, it had begun to feel like an option. A real option that maybe he could live. That maybe he could be free.

But none of it ever felt quite so real until Cas. 

Standing in the bunker, waiting for Billie, the banging almost like his own heartbeat in his ears. Castiel had said all those words Dean had never been expecting to hear, from anybody, and Dean hadn’t been able to process a word of it. 

He remembered his father telling him that it was all about stopping the thing that killed his mother. He had been a kid then, truly naive to the way the world really was. Things had obviously changed since then, and Dean was far less inclined to settle for that. Because, try though he might, Dean had never actually been able to stop after the thing that killed his mother was gone. He had once thought that that was a huge, insurmountable obstacle.

Then Azazel was dead, and nothing actually stopped. 

Because then there were angels, and archangels, and leviathan, and Death, and Amara and bloody God himself and the boys were never able to really be free or safe.

Somehow though, when he’d had nothing else besides Sammy and his car, Dean had been okay with that. What he hadn’t been able to tolerate was finding out he had no actual free will at all. Finding out that they were all just trapped, all just stuck. That he was God’s favourite tv show and no amount of… anything would take that away.

Years of suffering, of losing everything, of dying and living again and dying again, all that time Dean thinking he was fighting for something worthwhile, only to learn everything had only ever been for the amusement of a deity.

To say Dean took it badly was an extreme understatement, but that was Dean. 

His free will was one of the only things he’d ever had. Even when everything else had seemed lost, he’d at least had that.

He remembered what Chuck said, standing in the hallway of the bunker, after having sucked up Amara like she was nothing. 

They were supposed to do what they were told. 

Castiel was supposed to serve Heaven.

Sam and Dean were supposed to turn into killing machines who eventually turned on each other, either from anger or to save the world. 

Seeing Jack make Chuck human again the way he had, seeing Chuck fall, beg them to let him live, then to kill him… It should have been satisfying. In a way, maybe it was. It was satisfying to know they were free at least.

Then Dean had Miracle. He had Sammy. He had ideas to get a job, even had an application he was in the process of filling out. To try to live. He had plans to find some way to get Cas back from the empty, had been doing research whenever he had a quiet moment. He and Sam were going to do small hunts, keep things simple, do the right thing and save people without having to be the famous fucking Winchesters anymore.

He had worn Castiel’s tie. He hadn’t had a chance to say anything back, and he hadn’t really talked to anyone about it, but he made a point of trying to keep Cas in mind at all times. He kept his trenchcoat in the boot of his car, for when he found a way to get him back. He wore the tie because it was some piece of Cas.

He prayed to him every night, hoping to find some way to wake him up, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Jack would get him back and Cas might hear him and come.

He tried to say the things he’d been scared to say in his prayers. He couldn’t tell Cas how he felt really, not like that, not when Cas wasn’t there. But he told him how he missed him. He told him stories about Miracle and Sammy. He told him about how he was applying to become a cop, of all things. He told him about how he still had his trenchcoat, and how he had his tie. Again and again and again, he told Cas that he missed him. That he needed to speak to him. That he’d do anything to be able to speak to him again.

He was sure his desperation leaked into his words, but he didn’t even know if Cas was hearing them. 

He didn’t even know if Cas was alive to hear them. All he knew was that he would never stop trying to get him back.

At least, Dean thought that much. But that had been before.

That had been before the piercing, excruciating, otherworldly pain of the rebar in his back. Dean had gone through worse before; he had been tortured in Hell for years, after all. He had died a thousand times over at this point, more than that, probably, if Sam was to be believed. 

Because when that pole went through his back, Dean realised that there was no future. No chance for him to get Cas back. No chance for him to get a job. He’d barely gotten a week with his dog, after wanting one so desperately for so long. He wouldn’t ever get to see Sam have kids, or have any of his own. 

Right there and then, Dean realised it was over. No more second chances. Jack wasn’t Chuck, he wouldn’t bring Dean back. What was more, there was no plot armour anymore. No Jack trying to keep his show running. 

Dean was dead. He was dead the second he found this case. He was dead the second he entered this barn. Only once the rebar had already damned him did he realised he knew this barn. 

Now that he was looking, he could recall it clear as day. How Bobby had stood beside him, guns raised, ready to fight. How Cas had walked in, all lights flickering and scarily high pitched noises. How scary he had seemed then. How dangerous.

Of course, he didn’t seem like that anymore. 

Over time, he had become the puppyish, loyal Cas Dean had known forever. Over time, he had become increasingly a part of their family. He was nothing like the other angels, nothing like what Dean had once thought he was. Over time, he had become Dean’s best friend. The one who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, yes, but also the one who fought against Heaven for him. The one who Dean occasionally caught watching him sleep.

How fitting it seemed for Dean to die here, in this same barn, never having gotten to say the words back to Cas. Never having gotten to tell him the truth.

Choking on his own blood from the rebar he was sure was piercing through vital organs, Dean was able to get out his final words. About how it had always been him and Sammy. About how he would always love his brother. About how he needed him to move forward. About how he was fine with dying this way. Dean managed to get the words out and, truthfully, he didn’t want to. He wished he hadn’t said them, because it felt too real. Too painful.

But Sammy was crying and Dean was too and the last thing he felt was Sam’s arms around him as the life drained from his body.

He had been here before. He had experienced this feeling. The fading, aching pain of knowing it was the end. He was sure there was no amount of physical pain he hadn’t already endured, but this was something else. This was emotional pain. This was the end.

No more Sammy. No more Cas. No more Jack. No more Miracle. Just Dean, trapped in his own memories for eternity. 

He wondered what the memory would be, but part of him didn’t want to know. Dean wondered if he would rather be nothing than trapped totally alone without his family for the rest of eternity. Than had to live -- or rather, die -- with the continued guilt of all the words he never got to say. Or maybe, was never brave enough to say.

He stood there watching as Sam burned his body. Nobody else. He wondered whether Sam hadn’t called the others, or whether they just hadn’t come. 

He wondered who would even come. Who would even care. Were there even people left on Earth who truly would? He had done nothing but bring pain upon his friends. Upon Jody, Donna, Alex, Claire, Patience, Bobby, Charlie, all the rest of them. Just pain. Just knowing him had brought them into the painful and torturous story Chuck had been writing all their lives. 

Maybe they would be glad to be free of him. 

But then Dean was standing in what appeared to be a clearing in the woods and, while it was beautiful, it didn’t seem right.

Dean couldn’t place the memory for a moment. Couldn’t find, in his mind, where he was. 

He walked until he saw the Roadhouse, and turned, looking for some sign of Ellen or Jo or even Ash. Just someone he knew more than anything. 

If he was at the Roadhouse this must be a memory. His memories of the Roadhouse all included them. 

If he was in a memory there, he wondered what it would look like. Somehow, it wasn’t what he had been expecting.

But then he saw Bobby sitting on the porch and he paused, confused, brows raising. “Bobby…?”

Bobby explained to him about this place. About how things had changed. About how his parents were nearby and Rufus. About how Jack and Cas had fixed this place. Made it better.

His heart, or whatever of it existed in this place, seemed to jump at the mention of Castiel, but he didn’t know how to speak to Bobby about that. He wanted to speak to Cas about that, and not really anyone else. He tried to keep things passive, to keep his expression guarded, at least until he was able to speak to the Angel. 

He wanted to get in his car. To drive until he found someone else he knew, to find his friends and reunite with them. If it was everyone he loved, if Jack had liberated those who deserved a real heaven, then that meant Kevin should be here too. Jess. All the people they had failed to save. All the friends they had lost. 

Maybe, Dean hoped, he could see them all. Maybe he could check on people. Maybe he could make right all his previous mistakes. 

He was never much the type to talk about his feelings with most people, and though he loved many of those who were apparently here in heaven, he had never been the best at emoting, even to them. He trusted Bobby more than most, but he refused to speak to others about this before he spoke to Cas about it.

So he got in his car and he drove. He drove until he found his parents. 

They shared an emotional reunion, Dean’s arms wrapping around them both.

Though he loved his family dearly, and he did, his feelings around John were still very complicated, and truthfully, his feelings about Mary were to an extent too. He didn’t want to harbour anger, and it seemed painful and unnecessary to do so now, so he focused on telling them the basic parts of things.

He told them how they had beat God. How they had left Chuck there to grow old and die as alone as all the people Chuck had abandoned or forced to suffer. He told them about Sammy, how he was safe and okay when last Dean saw him, and how he had the bunker and hopefully Miracle. He had to believe Sammy would look after Miracle.

He told them about all the things they’d seen, and he tried to keep things simple and casual when he told them about how he died.

They both expressed how sorry they were for him and Dean took it with a sad smile. They had a beer together and Dean watched in joy as the two of them sat close together, sat holding hands.

He had to believe Mary and John would have been together anyway, that they were soulmates, but honestly, heaven was such a different thing now that he didn’t know how it would work.

Either way, they were happy. Their home was the same one Sam and Dean had been born into, and John told Dean proudly that he didn’t really drink anymore. Dean didn’t know how much that mattered, all things considered, as he didn’t know whether you could be an alcoholic in Heaven, but he smiled and took it as a win regardless. 

There were a lot of things about his childhood Dean now knew to be wrong, but he was trying hard to ignore them. Trying hard to be able to forgive and to move on. 

Bobby had said time was different here, and Dean took that into account. He tried to spend time with John and Mary, tried to get to know them again in this setting. 

It felt like days, but was different really, when Dean finally departed. 

He found Charlie, their Charlie, and he hugged for a long time, just gripping onto her tightly. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” He found himself repeating over and over again.

Charlie had deserved so much better. The little sister he’d never had, the one he’d always wanted. 

“Dean, please… I forgive you…” She said quietly, “You didn’t do this.” 

She gave him a warm, sort of sad smile. 

“Dean, the only thing I can’t forgive you for is dying in such a dumb way after all that being badass,” Dean laughed because if he didn’t, he would just get angry and spiral all over again.

It was nice that they were here. It was nice that they were free. It was nice that his loved ones for here.

But somehow it wasn’t enough. Because he had never really had freedom. He had never really had peace. He had never gotten that life he’d deserved since he was born. Never gotten to have a Christmas. Never got to have kids or a life or even to have a dog for more than a week. 

He tried to joke things off with her and they sat together and talked. He told her about Other-World-Charlie and her girlfriend Stevie and they joked briefly about that time she’d tried to flirt with a Security Guard and Dean had had to talk her through it.

If there was anyone Dean would tell about all that was on his mind, it was Charlie. But no. It had to be Cas. Dean had to talk to Cas.

He kept driving until he found Kevin. Kevin who had been through so much, who had deserved so much better. More apologies after more apologies. Kevin had been kind to Dean, even though Dean had let him down too many times.

Dean just kept going and going. Finding every person he hadn’t saved. Every person he’d lost. Finally, when he couldn’t think of anyone else -- it felt like it must’ve taken days, but somehow also hadn’t changed at all. Like no time had passed at all.

He kept driving. If Cas had helped to design this place, he had to imagine he would find what he was looking for.

And he did. The impala pulled up right outside a beach, and Dean got out. He wasn’t dressed for it, and he knew it wasn’t technically real, but he pulled his shoes off and walked out into the sand. 

It was silent, save for the wind and the waves and Dean just stood there. He thought about how it smelt. How it sounded. How it felt. How real it was.

He wondered if Cas remembered what he had said. About how he had wanted to go to the beach. Just them. Their little family. 

Sam wasn’t here, but that was okay. Sam was living his life and in truth, Dean was okay with having this time. Being apart wasn’t so bad when he knew Sam would be safe and okay. When he knew Sam was free of Chuck, when he knew Sam would go on without him.

So instead, he stood. He stood until he watched the sun set, even though time didn’t really exist here as far as he knew. 

He stood and listened to the wind that whistled past his ears, through his hair, past the trees. 

He closed his eyes and he prayed.

“Cas…” He whispered, out loud, “I don’t know if you’re here. I don’t know if you can… hear me.” He paused, clearing his throat. His voice sounded scratchy, and he didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last used it. “But uh… if you’re here, I… I would love to see you, man. I miss you.” He left it at that, because if he didn’t, he might cry.

Dean was trying to grow, trying to be okay with his feelings and how they affected him, but he wasn’t going to become emotionally stable over night. As it was, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been emotionally stable.

Nothing happened. No familiar whoosh, no trench coat, no deep ‘Dean’ that he was used to hearing. 

It didn’t matter. Dean would keep looking. He wasn’t planning on giving up any time soon, just as he wouldn’t have before. Just as he wouldn’t have when he was alive. Just as he was sure Cas wouldn’t have with him.

Eventually, after the hours had dragged on so long already that Dean was sure the sound of waves would play over in his head a thousand more times before it began to fade, he got back in his car.

He didn’t know where he was going exactly, but he figured if this was Heaven, and his supposed perfect Heaven, there must be somewhere. 

He didn’t notice it at first. The house. But after a moment it struck him that he was fairly certain he’d seen it before. He just couldn’t place where. It wasn’t his childhood home, that was for sure, but it was something.

He blinked a few times, trying to figure out what it was, what the familiarity was, when he eventually gave up. He just pulled up outside the place, imagining, however stupidly, that he would just know somehow.

He walked into the house, keys in hand, knocking on the door. 

Nothing happened, so Dean pushed it open, walking inside and looking around. He looked around the place. There were familiar things inside, but they didn’t seem cohesive somehow. Like they weren’t from the same place, like they’d been taken from different parts of his life, almost. Some of the decor seemed like Bobby’s. Some of it seemed like it was from his childhood home. Some looked like it was from the bunker. As he walked, he found more familiar things. That looked like the table that had been in his childhood home. The picture on the wall was one Dean was sure belonged to Bobby. There was another picture on the fridge, one of him and Sam from when he was twenty-six that Dean had kept in a box by his bed. 

This place, Dean realised, was his. Filled with pieces of his own childhood and life, things that brought about feelings of love or at least familiarity for him.

The leather jacket that had once been his father’s hung over one of the kitchen chairs, and the amulet Sam had gotten him sat neatly furled on the table.

He was sure if he looked, he would find more. More things that belonged to them. Already he could see the picture of him, Sam, Cas, Bobby, Jo and Ellen from the night before it all went wrong. Already he could see a picture of him, Sam, Cas and Jack. 

But if all of this was here, collections of things that meant something to him, collections of things that he loved, then someone had made this for him. Someone had designed the home Dean had never had. The peaceful, calm place he’d never been allowed to have.

It didn’t look familiar because he’d been there before. It looked familiar because it was literally made for him. Comprising all the homes he’d almost had. All the ones he wished he’d had. 

So when Dean heard a whoosh behind him, he wasn’t entirely surprised.

He had an image of a far younger version of himself telling Cas to get out of his ass, and nearly chuckled to himself when he turned.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Cas cut him off.

“I’m gone for one week and you die on a piece of rebar?” Cas asked him, shaking his head as though Dean were an idiot. “I took one week off to help Jack make this place and… and you…”

He sounded more frustrated than Dean had ever heard him sound, which actually, sort of made Dean want to laugh about it all. He wasn’t sure how this reunion was going to go, but there was something hilarious about Cas being mad at him for the stupid way he’d died rather than upset about it. Rather than upset Dean hadn’t gotten to answer, maybe.

“I’m sorry.” Dean said quietly, “You died for me and I immediately went and got killed.”

“Yes, I know.” Castiel shook his head, maintaining his serious composure. If Dean didn’t know Cas so well, he might think he was really mad, but he knew better. In fact, he was pretty sure he had taught Cas this kind of passive aggression. “The least you could would be to live a little bit longer. Have a happy life. I was hoping to see you get married. Have a child, a house, a life.”

Dean’s smile faded a little bit when Castiel spoke of the future he wanted Dean to have. Dean sort of wanted all that stuff too, it was just hard to ignore the glaring, obvious part of it all. 

He didn’t want to get married and have a kid within anyone except the socially awkward angel in front of him.

“That’s not what I wanted.” Dean finally answered, the smile fading out of his tone. All of his relief was sapped into confusion. Or maybe frustration. 

He knew, obviously. He knew Cas believed he didn’t have any feelings for him. He knew Cas thought of him as ‘the thing he couldn’t have’. 

Although, there was the other part of it all. The confusion and paranoia he felt that maybe he was wrong. That maybe Cas hadn’t meant it romantically at all. That maybe angels couldn’t have those feelings and maybe Dean was totally misinterpreting it. 

Suddenly, panic filled up his throat. Dean had always been bad when it came to feelings. Socially illiterate about love. 

Apparently, even Death (and which incarnation of his death even was it?) hadn’t fixed that problem. 

Cas frowned, “Yes, it was. You… I’ve been inside your head, Dean, I know what you wanted. You wanted to be normal. You wanted to have a real life.”

God, he was making this fucking hard. Dean wished he would make it easier. Then again, he supposed Cas had already done the vulnerable thing. It was Dean who hadn’t. It was Dean who had stood there like some stupid, silent, vampire mime. 

“No, I didn’t.” Dean argued back, realising he needed to just say what he was thinking, but finding that no words came when he tried. 

“You deserved to live.” Castiel argued back flatly, and Dean wondered how the emotional reunion he had anticipated had turned into the two of them arguing about whether or not Dean wanted to marry someone else. Or whether or not his stupid death was his own fault. “You deserved a life. Sam… will get his and I’m happy for him, but this shouldn’t be your time.”

Dean sighed, “Well, to be fair, man, I wasn’t trying to get impaled, it just sort of happened.”

“When I made all this for you, I wasn’t expecting you to be needing it quite so soon.”

Of course it had been Cas who made all this. It only made sense. Nobody else knew him that well and he knew Cas had been helping fix this place. But hearing the confirmation only made Dean’s chest ache. 

How had he failed him so badly? How had he truly lived and died with Cas as his best friend for twelve years without ever telling him he loved him? Even platonically?

For as long as he could remember, Dean had only ever told two people he loved them. Sam and Mary. But Dean did love others. So many others. So many people who had never, probably would never, hear those words from him.

“The beach…?” Dean asked, like an idiot who couldn’t process his own feelings in any useful way.

“What about it?” Cas asked, his expression staying in the very serious angel mask Dean was used to seeing on him most of the time. He couldn’t help but think about how different he’d looked when last Dean saw him. The smile on his face. The tears. He had seemed so vulnerable and open. So human. 

If Dean had interpreted it right, he couldn’t imagine how hard that must’ve been for him to say. Especially with Dean being the way he so often was.

“Did you… for me…?” 

If Dean ever formed a coherent sentence, he might die of shock. Or… he didn’t suppose you could die in Heaven, but if anyone could manage that, it was surely Dean Winchester.

“Yes.” Cas answered back, and Dean was struck with a weird realisation. Cas was protecting himself. He had his guard up. Dean’s brows furrowed. Cas had been human in his feelings for a long time now, at least in some ways, but Dean never knew how far that stretched. Now, he really did seem like just a man. A man who was trying hard not to let on more than he wanted to. A man struggling to figure out how to act.

Dean found it weirdly endearing, and he had to restrain the urge to reach out to Castiel. 

“Thank you.” He said seriously, resting a hand on Cas’ shoulder, before his resolve weakened and shattered altogether and he pulled the shorter man into a tight hug.

Every hug they’d had had been… heightened. By death or fear or separation. By looming threats. This one felt sort of different. The threats were all over. Sure, Dean was dead, but he was safe. In Jack’s heaven, in his own little house built for him by the self-hating Angel of Thursday with a crack in his chassis. Dean loved him so much and he had no idea how to express that. He hugged him tightly, arms locked around the man in a way he was sure would be painful for any human. 

“I missed you,” Dean said into the hug, his eyes squeezed tight shut. Cas’ arms were around him too, but he almost seemed… confused. Unwilling. Dean wondered if the damage had been done by him not answering. Or if maybe Cas was trying not to get hurt.

The fear that he was misinterpreting resurfaced, and Dean tried desperately to fight it off. 

“We were only apart a week,” Cas spoke, his voice low and confused. 

“Yeah, I know. I missed you.” Dean repeated, trying to make his point. Trying to show how much Cas meant. He sort of hoped Cas would just say something to make it obvious so he didn’t have to take the risk himself, but Cas had already taken the risk.

And besides, Dean was dead. How much more could he possibly have to lose?

He never got his freedom. He never got his life. He never got a job or a house or a wedding ring or kids or any of the many things he’d once dreamt of having when this was all over. He’d lost all of it, and though he was mourning for his own life… He couldn’t risk losing anything else. He’d already lost so much.

“Hey, Cas…” Dean began, trying hard to break the awkwardness of the conversation, trying hard to push himself into action, into bravery. “You know… you know that thing you said… before… about the one thing you couldn’t have.” He cleared his throat, “Well, maybe… maybe I’m a moron, and if I am, just… ignore me, but uh…”

Dean had to take a second, had to swallow hard to get the lump of anxiousness out of his throat. He had to take several deep breaths before he could speak again, and he pulled back from Cas so that he could see his face. God, this was so awkward. He felt so exposed. 

What else did he have to lose? Only Cas, and he couldn’t risk that happening again.

“You can have me.”

Cas’ expression went blank, and he stared at Dean as though Dean was crazy. Maybe Dean was crazy. Maybe he’d read the whole thing totally wrong and his confession was meant to have a ‘bro’ on the end of it or something and Dean had just gone and made the whole thing weird.

Maybe everything he’d reevaluated was wrong. All the times Cas had given up everything. Their ‘profound bond’. All the times they had gotten just a little too close, stared at each other for just a little too long. Maybe Dean was totally wrong. Maybe he really would lose the only thing he truly had left to lose. 

“Dean, you don’t have to…” Cas trailed off, and once again, Dean noted how human he seemed. How… normal. “You don’t have to say that, just because I… said what I said, I wasn’t trying to…” 

“I don’t think I have to say it,” Dean scoffed, shaking his head. “I know I don’t have to say it. I’m just… I’m just saying that… if you want… you can have me.”

The wording was weird, and Dean knew he probably sounded like an awkward fifteen year old asking someone out for the first time, but he was trying his best for vulnerability and he did feel like his heart was on his sleeve here. Did he even have a heart anymore? Or had that been burned away in his hunter’s funeral?

Cas looked like he was doing some kind of complex mathematics in his head, eyes staring at Dean like he thought if he stared intensely enough, he could see inside Dean’s head.

“When you say ‘have you’, do you mean--” 

Dean took a step forward, his hands resting on either side of Cas’ face. “I mean…” He leaned down a little, his lips pressed against Cas’. His stomach (or whatever it was) seemed to backflip and he let his thumbs rub over Cas’ stubble and his jaw, as if trying to prove he was still there. He’d had his hands here before, but not like this.

He’d kissed people before, but not like this. Dean, who was usually all fire and anger and burning frustration, was trying his best to be soft about it.

He didn’t want Cas to think it was something he was forcing himself into, or something that didn’t mean anything. He needed Cas to know what this meant. That it meant everything to him.

He needed him to understand how badly he’d wanted to kiss him for so long. He needed him to understand that, at least from Dean, this wasn’t lust. This was love.

It was Cas who changed it. It was Cas who backed Dean up against the fridge, Cas whose hands wandered first. It was Cas who suddenly seemed like he’d been waiting for this for a thousand years and couldn’t wait anymore. 

And Dean, who had spent his entire life fighting and pushing and moving forward even when it hurt, who was always on the brink of horror and death and suffering, was more than happy to let Cas be the one to dictate this moment. Dean, who had spent his whole life looking after and protecting everyone else, was more than happy to just melt into Cas. 

He had spent so long denying, even to himself, that he wanted this, but right here, in this perfect amalgamation of Dean’s happiest places, with one of Cas’ hands in his hair and another up under his shirt, gripping onto his side, Dean couldn’t deny how long he had wanted this. How badly he had wanted this.

Maybe Cas had been in love with Dean the whole time, but Dean… Dean didn’t know when he’d fallen for Cas. He didn’t know whether his playful friendship had turned into a devotion so strong that he would’ve given up his freedom to get Cas out of the empty. He didn’t know when it had become love and desire and desperately wanted to have Cas with him, pressed against him like he was. He didn’t know when it had happened and yet, he didn’t care. He just accepted it.

All his life, Dean had been the protector. All his life, Dean had been the soldier, the sword, the weapon, the killer, the vessel. He’d been the character, led by someone else, never allowed to be happy or peaceful or free. All his life, Dean had felt like he didn’t deserve any of this. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe as long as he lived, he would never deserve Cas. But he found that he didn’t care much. 

When Cas led him upstairs, Dean wasn’t thinking about whether or not he deserved it. Dean was thinking about how badly he wanted to kiss Cas again. When he saw his new bedroom -- their new bedroom? -- Dean wasn’t thinking about how much he had lost, he was thinking about what it would be like to finally act on what he had been quietly thinking about for years. 

When it was done, and Dean lay in the bed beside Cas, he realised he had no idea what a life with him here felt like. No idea if they could sleep or eat. No idea if Cas would stay. No idea what any of this was meant to feel like.

Dean was basically phased into another planet, happily drifting off into a place where someone who knew him so well, someone who had seen the trauma and the pain and the anger and the absolute worst parts of Dean loved him anyway. In his mind, there was only Cas. Only his voice, and his hands, and his smile, and the way his fingers ran along Dean’s arms. 

“So… I can have you…?” Cas repeated back, though the tone of his voice sounded different now. Amused, maybe. 

“Yeah… I could’ve probably said that better,” Dean conceded, letting out a nervous chuckle. He wrapped his arms around Cas, letting his eyes drift closed as he curled up at his best friend’s side. 

“No, I liked it.” Cas told him, a smile in his voice. “It was… romantic.” He paused, waiting a moment before adding, “Also hot.” 

Dean let out a laugh, still feeling a little on top of the world, “Are you still mad at me for dying in a stupid way?”

“Yes.” Cas answered without a second thought, “Though… I think I’ll get over it very quickly, if this is how we’re living now.”

Dean smiled, “Then you’re staying?”

“Yeah, I’m staying.” Cas brought a hand up, running featherlight touches over Dean’s cheekbones. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

“Which part?” Dean joked, unable to help himself. 

“All of it. But I meant touching your freckles.” 

Everything felt so surreal that Dean wondered if a djinn had gotten him again. He was sure this was how it would be now. Except that maybe he’d have a dog and not be dead. 

Dean couldn’t be sure why he felt nervous still. He knew now that Cas definitely meant what he said in a romantic way. He knew now how it felt to be truly close to him. He knew now that whatever was between them was real and reciprocated, that they could go on this way forever, yet… he still felt afraid. There was a burning question he couldn’t place in his own mind.

“Why?” He asked quietly.

Cas frowned, “What do you mean why? Why what?”

“Why me?”

He felt sort of stupid and vulnerable asking it at all. He was a grown-ass man, he shouldn’t be seeking validation like this. Yet, he needed to know. Cas had been alive for thousands of years, probably far longer. In every other universe, Cas and Dean had just passed each other by, just let years pass and nothing ever changed. They weren’t them. They weren’t this. What about this world was different? And why, though Dean hated to think the question, even to himself, would anyone ever love him this way? Why Cas? 

An Angel, who had seen the very best and worst of not only humanity, but every facet of the world. Why him?

“I thought I already answered this question,” He sounded tired again, and Dean realised that Cas really did have that Winchester attitude when it came to things like this, which actually sort of made him smile. “Because you’re a hero. You’re selfless and loving and you see yourself as something you’re not. But that doesn’t make it true. No amount of belief that you’re not worth it will make it true. I realised, twelve years ago, that you didn’t think you deserved to be saved. I spent years afterwards trying to prove to you that you did. It’s annoying that you still don’t see it.”

Dean frowned, shaking his head, “You did, I’m sorry. It’s just… thousands of years, so many people. You… you could go back down. You could be human, could live a life, could experience all of it. You could be around Sammy and have kids and do all that stuff… All of the normalcy and humanity and family… Why would you choose to sit here with me forever?”

Cas sighed, “For someone as smart as you are, you are dense.” The angel told him, running a hand through Dean’s hair as if he was determined to touch every part of him, maybe because he hadn’t been able to before. 

“I… thanks,” He scoffed, “I was asking a serious question.”

“I know you were. I just don’t know how to answer it any more than I already have. You said it yourself, thousands of years, Dean. I spent some of it human. I had the chance to find love with others. I had the chance to… be human. In thousands of years, it was only ever you.”

Dean had no idea what to do with that, because the little built-in kindness blocker he’d had installed in his head since childhood was trying hard to convince him that Cas was lying, that somehow he was wrong, but what was the point? What was the point when he finally had a chance to be happy? When they were finally here?

Dean couldn’t find the right words -- he never could -- but he settled on some anyway, what he could think of. 

“I love you.” 

Dean just wanted Cas to know. All that sacrifice and pain, he wanted Cas to know that Dean never was the one thing he couldn’t have. That, in fact, he had had Dean all along. Even before Dean had known that himself. 

“I love you too.”

*

It was years before Sam showed up. Or days. Dean never really could tell. All he knew was that things had changed for him here.

He had been slowly working to dismantle the damage done to him. The trauma and grief. The feeling that his own life had never mattered, that his only purpose had been to protect Sam. He had been working slowly to dismantle it all, but really, Cas had been working hard to dismantle it all. It was Cas who constantly reminded Dean of who he was. Cas who constantly reminded him that he mattered just as much. Cas who constantly reminded him that he wasn’t Dean Winchester, good soldier. He wasn’t Dean Winchester, Righteous Man. That he wasn’t the Michael Sword or the Saviour or the Killer or any of the other boxes he’d been put into over the years. That he was a real person, as deserving of love and affection and kindness as any other. It was Cas who finally made Dean feel really loved, and it was Cas that Dean came home to every night.

Cas was constantly reminding him of how much he was worth. Of how good he was. And while Dean sometimes found it hard to listen to, after time, it started to sink in.

Dean started to feel himself get happier. He started to feel his own peace grow. He had most of his family. He could see Bobby or Ellen or Jo or his Mom or Dad anytime he wanted to. He could always return home to his Angel. 

He started to heal.

And when he could finally feel it, feel that his brother was coming back to him, he drove the impala out onto the bridge, and he waited. He stared off into the water, fiddling halfheartedly with the wedding band on his left hand, waiting for the boy he’d spent his whole life protecting to finally be done. To finally be at peace. He knew about Sam’s life. How he had married Eileen. How they had had a son named Dean. He knew Sam had gone on and had been happy. At some point, Miracle had joined Dean and Cas’ household and Dean knew Sam had looked after him too.

When he felt Sam behind him, he managed to smile, to turn to him, to hug him.

His littler -- but bigger -- brother looked the same as when Dean had last seen him, and Dean was glad to finally have him back. 

He had been waiting an eternity -- or maybe it was only a few days -- but none of that mattered. His family was reunited. 

He was sure Jack would stop by to see them all, as he did sometimes. He was sure they would sit at his and Cas’ dining room table, that they would drink beer together, and it would be like they were in the bunker again. Everything was different, of course. No wild monsters or end of the world panic. No fear.

Jack was God. Sam had lived a long, full life. Dean and Cas had gotten married (if that even counted from up here; Dean thought it did). 

Sam didn’t seem surprised to see the ring on Dean’s finger, and he didn’t question it when they went home together and Cas greeted Sam with a hug and Dean with a kiss. He only smiled and told them he was waiting for Eileen. Sam seemed… content. He had finally gotten to live the life he had wanted since childhood, and now they could all be together again.

Things had changed, but they were still family. And the initials carved into Dean’s table were there to prove it.


End file.
